‘Hot sauce mom’ convicted of child abuse

An Alaskan mother who poured hot sauce into the mouth of her adopted 7-year-old Russian son was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse by an Anchorage jury on Tuesday.

Associated Press

Jessica Beagley, aka Hot Sauce Mom, in a courtroom on Tuesday.

Jessica Beagley, 36, submitted a video tape of herself scolding her son for lying about misbehaving at school to the “Dr. Phil Show” (Watch the video.) and prosecutors say she did this to get on television, according to the Associated Press.

In the difficult-to-watch video Beagley belittles her son for lying and forces him to eat hot sauce and to take a freezing cold shower.

After “Dr. Phil” viewers saw the footage, they flooded the show with phone calls and police started an investigation.

When the court decision was announced yesterday, Beagley and her husband, who have six children, were emotionless. They immediately left the courtroom and rushed past reporters without responding to questions.

Jessica Beagley faces the maximum sentence of one year in jail, a $10,000 fine, and up to 10 years of probation when she is sentenced Monday, according to the AP.

Do you think this mother deserves to be convicted of child abuse? I think yes, definitely. She takes discipline to an unacceptable extreme that’s clearly damaging to her son. But also, I think mothers who are unkind to their children for the sake of getting on television need to be stopped. Case in point: Sheena Upton, aka Botox Mom, who lied about injecting her 8-year-old daughter with Botox so she could be featured in the newspaper and appear on national television.